


In My Hands I Held The World

by BenevolentErrancy



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Mabari, Mutilation, Permanent Injury, Physical Disability, Pre-Relationship, Tags Liable to Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5711422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenevolentErrancy/pseuds/BenevolentErrancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't supposed to be like this.</p>
<p>If Dorian, scion of the great, noble House Pavus, result of generations of careful magical breeding, were to fall then it should have been glorious. Overwhelmed by Red Templars, magic drowned by their Smites, but still fighting stubbornly on until the last. Run through by some Venatori as he protected his dearest friends and companions, acting to ensure that the Inquisition at least could live to fight another day. Felled as he stared Corypheus himself in the eye and showed him the true strength of the Imperium.</p>
<p>It should never have been liked this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> (Not sure if this will end up really counting as "graphic violence", there'll really only be one scene of it and I don't think it'll be that over the top but :/ just to be safe)
> 
> This is a fill for this prompt from the kink meme:
> 
> Ok so going by the Leliana's Song DLC way back in DA:O, mages need their hands to cast magic, at least in an effective and controllable manner.
> 
> So give me a fic where Dorian's hands are cut off by someone. It doesn't really matter who, but I think it would really put the bite in things if it were just some asshole who doesn't like mages, rather than one of Corypheus' minions. He's immediately taken off the front lines, but he's not really the type to sit and help manage the library when his friends and comrades are out in the field, so he gets together with Solas and Vivienne when they're available and the other Skyhold mages when they're not to try to figure out A) How he can use his magic to perform all the daily tasks that generally need hands to work and B) How he can help the Inquisitor out on the field.
> 
> Most people think it's just a fantasy and nothing will come of it, but Dorian is determined to make this happen. Eventually he succeeds, if only partially. Bonus points if Dagna somehow gets involved, because Dagna is the most adorable mad scientist.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

If Dorian, magical protégé, scion of the great, noble House Pavus, result of generations of careful magical breeding, were to fall then it should have been glorious. Overwhelmed by Red Templars, magic drowned by their Smites, but still fighting stubbornly on until the last. Run through by some Venatori as he protected his dearest friends and companions, acting to ensure that the Inquisition at least could live to fight another day. Felled as he stared Corypheus himself in the eye and showed him the true strength of the Imperium.

It should never have been liked this.

They had stopped in some nowhere spit of a village in the Hinterlands. Truly, _nowhere_. It had been endless hills and forests and mountains until a handful of sad roofs had risen up among a patch of scraggly fields. Even among small, nowhere villages it had been a poor sight: a number of houses stood half-burned and the fields looked churned and useless. But it was like that everywhere now, so this visible shadow of chaos wasn't even enough to be particularly notable and did nothing to improve Dorian's opinion of it or their situation as a whole.

During the journey leading them to the little village Dorian had been decidedly miserably and had been happy to let everyone else know it. The Hinterlands were cold – as they rode into the village a light, early snow had already begun to fall – and it didn't even house any important Venatori strongholds that at least made trips into the Wastes or Emprise du Lion worthwhile. And it was all entirely too _Ferelden_. But while the Inquisitor had been sympathetic to his complaints at the beginning when the snow had just begun to fall even she had taken to rolling her eyes at him and soon had ridden ahead. Dorian's other choices for conversation were regrettably only Cole or the Iron Bull, and after Cole began talking about how the cold bit like a bad memory, made him miss the hot summer evening of Tevinter, the enclosed, stifling library where he and his father would sit together and study, missed being stifled, _stifling_ , missed _home_ which could never again be home – well, Dorian had made a point of riding away from him. Shortly after that Bull had lobbed a snowball at the back of his neck and made ice slither right down into his robes so he was stubbornly refusing to speak to him as well.

Complaining when there was no one to complain to was a tricky thing and it made the ride all the more miserable.

He could almost have been grateful for the village if for no other reason than the mayor granted them a couple rooms for the evening after the Inquisitor had spoken with him about the going-ons of the area (“as long as you need,” the mayor had assured them as she led them to a set of open rooms above the small village smithy, often let to travellers apparently. “The weather is getting hard. Thank you again for your promise of help, your worship.”) Dorian had personally felt that “as long as you need” was sounding like a better and better idea as what had once been delicate, curling flakes became a proper, biting storm.

The South was a misery; Dorian couldn't understand how anyone could see white pain drop from the sky and think that this was an appropriate place to settle.

The rooms had been quickly divvied up, with the Inquisitor and Cole taking one, and Bull and Dorian being left to the other. As they had unloaded their packs and changed clothes, the Inquisitor, bless her noble soul, had gone back out into the storm to buy them all some hot food and to talk some more among the village people about a possible Rift they'd been hearing rumours about. Regrettably there had been no baths being offered, but the heat rising from the smithy was a gift from the Maker himself and Dorian had soon curled happily on his bed, beginning to thaw out a little.

He was asleep before the Inquisitor had ever made it back with dinner.

-

“There's food sitting by the vent to keep it warm. It's cold now, but the Inquisitor wanted it to be hot for you. She and it both tried their best.”

Dorian blinked properly awake and twisted in the bed to see Cole's pale face face staring at him from where he perched on some of the storage crates that were crammed in the corner of his and Bull's room. Dorian made a noise that he hoped adequately expressed his confusion.

“You're hungry,” said Cole, as if that explained anything.

Dorian sat up and groaned. He felt stiff, and though he was much warmer than yesterday the cold of the South had a way of sitting in his bones long after the rest of him was warm. And Cole was right, he was indeed quite hungry.

“What's this about food? And where is everybody?” he asked groggily.

Cole passed him some slices of toast with cheese melted over top and a bowl of congealing porridge that had been sat next to a vent in the floor that let the heat of the smithy rise up and warm the upper rooms. It had gone mostly cold but if there was one thing Dorian had learned to accept it was that bad food came with camping. Besides, he had apparently managed to miss dinner entirely and his stomach wasn't feeling picky, so he ate while Cole explained.

“The Inquisitor thinks there's a Fade Rift in the east. The people are scared. _Humming, low, like a growl or a song when you get to close, breaking light like the sky, monsters, screams, screams with the singing. People gone to investigate, to protect the village, but they're gone into the songs and screams forever now – fewer mouths to feed but still too many. New grief over old grief not yet old._ They're right, it is there. We're all going this afternoon. But the village needs more help than just with the Fade. They're people, not spirits, and the song isn't enough. So the Inquisitor and the Iron Bull have gone to help gather some supplies until you woke and we could leave. I wanted to help, but someone needed to tell you where they had gone and that there was food, and I can't carry as much as the Iron Bull can so I stayed.”

“I–” said Dorian. “They could have woken me! Kaffas!” Casting the now empty bowl aside he stumbled out of bed, rushing to his discarded clothes.

“But... you were unhappy yesterday. _Too cold, too lonely, too far, too tired. Words spilling out, not the right ones but at least they're something. No one hearing but it's good to let them fall outside yourself in the cold behind you._ They thought they would let you sleep in the warmth until they needed you. They wanted to help.”

Dorian felt his face warm in a way that had nothing to do with the smithy fires a floor below him. It was one thing to complain about the misery of the South, another thing entirely to be treated like some delicate hothouse plant that couldn't take care of itself! They had just left him! Like a dead-weight! Growling to himself he fumbled into his robes (Cole faced the wall during this without Dorian needing to ask; of all the human things for Cole to have picked up on not watching people change seemed to be one that had stuck) and shoved his boots on. They were still damp from yesterday.

“Do you know where the others are, Cole?”

“No,” said Cole slowly. “And yes. I could find them. We don't have to though, they said they would be back in not too long...”

“ _Pah_. A blight on them and their not-too-long's. We're going to help, Cole.”

“Oh. ...Good, then.”

-

For perhaps the first and only time Dorian was envious of Cole's ridiculous hat. Its wide, oily leather rim caught the snow and sent it sliding off the sides, well away from his hair or neck or clothes. Dorian was not faring so well and he was regretting not letting the Inquisitor talk him into being commissioned some warmer robes. He _liked_ his robes. Not only where they painstakingly runed to make excellent armour – something he and Dagna had personally sat down over until a perfectly functional and aesthetically pleasing arrangement could be decided on – but they looked _damn_ good on him. He was, however, really regretting his exposed shoulder.

The sooner they found the Inquisitor and Bull and proved that he wasn't some delicate Altus bloom that could be left behind like a child, the better.

So it didn't help that Cole, who was leading them out into the uniformly white wilderness with sure, unwavering steps, suddenly stopped, staring off into the distance.

“The fire made the cold disappear, forever. The cold can't touch where rage lives, hot in the belly, hot in the throat, hot in the heart, burning everything else away. _It was their fault, their fault that little Cece is dead, she was a child, didn't do a damn thing, just wanted her doll and they killed her, they're animals, think they can do anything, a blight from the Maker. No, worse, they are the Blight. Everything is their fault, everything._ ” Cole turned to face Dorian and Dorian found himself completely rooted where he stood, caught up in Cole's too-big, pale eyes that seemed to stare straight through him. “But it wasn't your fault, Dorian, you didn't do that.”

“What?” asked Dorian. That wasn't one of his memories, he was sure. Certainly not one of the agonizingly painful ones that Cole so loved to grab onto and use like a jump-rope. Of course trying to decipher the bits and bobs that came out of Cole's mouth was a challenge of a good day and Dorian had no patience for it now. “Come along Cole, we need–”

And then, like a lightning burst, a horrible realization struck Dorian. Cole wasn't staring through him, but rather _looking past him_ –

He spun just in time for the fist aimed at the back of his head to hit him across the face and send him falling to the ground, stars exploding behind his eyes. He could just barely hear the sound of Cole roaring over that in his head, but it took him a moment to sort it all out. When he did he had his staff in his hands even before he was back on his feet, raising it and grabbing at the Fade, prepared to send raging vengeance on anyone that dare attack him, at anyone who might dare take a shot at Cole...

There was a tableau in the snow. The man who had punched Dorian lay groaning in the snow, blood flecked around him, undoubtedly courtesy of Cole's blades. Cole himself wasn't fighting; instead he was standing in front of a large man, who stood in front of a group of equally large men and women.

“You don't understand,” said Cole to the man. “You think it was Dorian who hurt you but it wasn't.”

 


	2. Negotiations

Dorian could scarcely bring himself to breath as he watched the crowd in the snow. The man who stood apart from the group, the one Cole had been speaking to, had one hand clutched around Cole's shoulder, the base of his neck, not yet an attack but a threat, while his other was curled around a wicked looking meat-cleaver. Dorian's hand tightened on his staff and he questioned whether it wouldn't be best to just send an arc of lightning across them and end this now... To hit that many people at once though, spread out, and still avoid Cole would be a delicate piece of spell work, especially with water at their feet and falling from the sky. It would have to work perfectly or else they would be outnumbered by a very angry hoard. And yet, they were almost certainly some of the people from the village and he didn't envy the task of telling the Inquisitor why she and Bull had returned with armloads of supplies to a village that no longer needed them.

In any case, Cole seemed to think there was some sort of misunderstanding. A misunderstanding that left him with a throbbing headache and bruised cheek, but still, if this could somehow be solved peacefully that would be preferable.

“You think hurting him will make it better,” said Cole calmly, “but it won't. She's already dead.”

The man roared and his heavy fist, the one not curled around Cole's neck, the one holding a big, heavy knife, slammed across the spirit's face. Cole went down with a sharp little noise followed by the gentle crunch of snow. With a shout Dorian flung out his staff and purple strands of lightning shot from its end, slamming into the men that had turned to advance on him. With shrieks and spasming muscles, a number were felled immediately while others were knocked back – and not so much as a strand brushed Cole, Dorian noted with pride. Well, fighting the locals may not have been ideal but as it now stood, it was their mistake going up against a mage raised with the best tutors Tevinter had to offer.

“Don't make me hurt you,” he warned, staff still raised. “We are members are the Inquisition, do you think this will end well for you?”

For a moment they stood in a tense stand off, those that had been able to stand after Dorian's initial assault having the good sense not to try to charge an angry, powerful mage. Their leader's piggy little eyes jumped briefly from Dorian, to his staff, back in the direction of the village and then they narrowed wickedly. In a single move he dived; Dorian shot out an arcane bolt but it sailed over his head, and the man stood again victorious, this time with Cole's limp body wrapped up in one of his arms, cleaver pressed to his neck. Cole's face was slack and there was a brutal slash across it, from hairline to chin, painting half his face red with blood and the other half distressingly pale. Dorian stilled.

The man huffed, tightening his hold on Cole. “That's right. Now drop the staff.”

“Release him,” returned Dorian.

The man's eyes narrowed. “I could kill him now, if you don't do what I ask.”

“And then I would kill you.”

Dorian could feel sweat rolling down the back of his neck despite the cold. It was one thing to gamble over drinks and good company, the worst that would happen there would be losing an embarrassing amount of coin to Josephine. Even gambling with his own life was a simple enough matter once you got use to the idea – he'd already lost his respect, his father, his family, his homeland, and his future, what was one more loss? To gamble with Cole though. These were not odds he wanted to play.

“Is it worth it?” Dorian asked, flinging his arms wide in a grandiose, patronizing gesture.

“For there to be one less of you demon-fuckers?” snarled the man. “Yes. Save some other poor little girl from you blighters. It was you mages you started this war, you mages that are trying to kill the world. Fuck you. _Fuck you_.”

Dorian could scarcely believe it. He had had the half-formed assumption that these people must have been Venatori agents in disguise or that Corypheus had some how corrupted the village people. This was just some petty little man with some petty, ignorant little vendetta that Dorian and Cole had had the bad luck to stumble into.

“Listen,” said Dorian as gently as he could. “Whatever happened, I'm sorry. But that wasn't me. And it wasn't the Inquisition. We've allied ourselves with the mages, the war is over, peace is being restored...”

“ _You call this peace?_ Being allied to a monster doesn't turn it into a fucking tamed dog. The Circles were too soft – you're all demons, you all need to be killed, you all need to be locked away and put down like the animals you are–”

In that moment though Cole's eyes had flashed open, filled with the cold, steely look they got when Cole fought, the one that was so hard to line up to the gentle, water look he normally had. In a motion that was too fast for even Dorian to follow a dagger had embedded itself in the man. He went down with a howl, knife dropping uselessly, and then Cole too was gone and chaos rose again.

Dorian cast a hasty fire glyph that consumed a large cluster of people, hoping a good flash-bang would be enough to panic them, make them step down, but next thing Dorian knew he was frantically tossing himself aside to avoid the arrows aimed at his person. He threw out a blind wall of ice behind him, not looking to see if he struck anyone as he scrambled back to his feet, but there was already woman inside his guard and it was all he could do to bring up his staff in time to catch the old, chipped sword that she swung at him. He sent out a kick that caught her knees and made her buckle. When she hit the ground though she didn't collapse, but didn't get up either. She was hunched in on herself and just let out a _sob_. Not one of pain, but something deep and agonized that made Dorian hesitate. This wasn't like fighting the red templars or the Venatori or some other evil, irredeemable asshole trying to destroy the world. These were plain, ordinary people who weren't trained for this sort of fighting, and who seemed very, very scared. It was one thing to defend himself even as he stood their with his staff raised he found he couldn't bring him to drive the blade of his staff through her shuddering back and end it. He couldn't.

His opponents didn't have the same hesitation though. As he stood over the woman, something hard slammed against the back of his head and suddenly everything slipped sickeningly to the side. He thought he might have heard Cold shout his name, but he couldn't be sure. Everything was swirling together and then it was very, very cold.

-

“How far are we going to go?”

“As far as we have to. If the mayor saw us...”

“She's a coward.”

“Watch your mouth. She's a good woman, with a soft heart. We'll do what needs to be done.”

Dorian was having a hard time making sense of what was happening. His entire body hurt and he felt nauseous. He couldn't move his arms but he wasn't sure if it was because they had somehow become too heavy or because they were bound. He was being dragged. A low panic was building deep in his chest, but he couldn't quite recall why.

_Cole, blood-splattered, out-numbered, a rogue surrounded, watching him with horrified eyes, calling his name._

Dorian's eyes snapped open and he tried to struggle.

“Oi! He's awake!” a voice called, cracking with fear.

For good reason, Dorian was going _kill them_.

Dorian swore violently in Tevene and kicked out at the first person to come near him – his hands were indeed tied behind him which meant spell casting was all but impossible, not if he couldn't direct his spells. He was hardly helpless though, he had been dragged out onto the training field by Cassandra and Cullen and Bull often enough, all concerned about his ability to defend himself should he run out of mana and lyrium potions. He caught one person in the soft bits with his foot and had him doubling over in pain, but then the person who'd been dragging him dropped him, and his shoulders and back hit the hard, cold ground with a thump that made everything swim again. And then there were hands all over him, dragging him into the snow, pressing against his face. He bit a set of fingers that got too near his mouth and spat blood at them defiantly when he was kicked for his troubles. His prospects didn't look good, but staying beneath their hands at their mercy seemed like an even worse idea, so against his better judgement Dorian twisted his bound wrists, trapped behind him, and pressed a fire glyph to the ground under him. It exploded around him and he was just able to get a shield up around himself to keep himself form being consumed by the flames.

The hands fell away but as he tried to get up he couldn't stop wheezing smoke, lungs burned with smoke. He had only gotten to his knees before he was kicked again, making his legs give out under him. He writhed as they tried to turn him over but then a fist slammed against his face once, twice, three times, and Dorian could do nothing but lay limply in the snow as blood filled his mouth.

“Hurry it up, hurry it up.”

His jaw was grabbed in a bruising hold and forced open as a vial was pressed to his lips. He knew the taste of magebane the second it touched his tongue. He spat it out and started struggling anew but this time someone was sitting on his legs and there were hands holding his shoulders and more still gripping his head, holding it still. He roared at them and let loose a Mind Blast, but already he could feel the burn of the magebane and the spell came out a pitiful thing. Briefly though the hands were cast away and _again_ Dorian rolled over, quicker this time – _had to be quicker –_ fighting the waves of dizziness, but again he was grabbed and this time when he hit the ground his vision was swallowed by a grey fog. He didn't know how long it held him, only that when he came to he was once more on his back, fingers digging into his mouth, and the vial was pressed painfully against his teeth. Dorian gave what he would like to think of as a growl but more likely came out embarrassingly close to a sob.

He choked. Tried to spit again, but a hand clamped over his mouth and nose and it was either drown on the potion or swallow. He swallowed. It burned the whole way down and coated his mouth in a sickly sweetness that didn't help his nausea.

“Come on,” someone growled behind him, “we're almost at the rock.”

 


	3. Burning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the most graphic the violence will get but it does take up a decent section of the chapter. If this is something you want to avoid, skip this chapter and pick the story back up in the next one

He was grabbed again, lifted, and was soon being dragged once more through the snow. His mind swam. Everything swam. He didn't pass out again though. Not that it did him much good. He struggled as best he could, but his body was wracked with shivers and he could feel his strength dripping away from him like the snow melting in his hair. He tried shouting, screaming for the Inquisitor, for Bull, for Cole, for anyone in this forsaken wasteland but he all he received for his troubles was a kick to his hip that sent spikes of pain all down his right leg and a foul tasting scrap of cloth that was shoved in his mouth and tied behind his head.

Then they reached what Dorian could only assume was “the rock”. It was a rather glorious title for a very unremarkable thing: they were in a small grove of thin trees and at its centre was a wide, flat rock, the sort of thing Dorian would have probably tripped over if he had been walking this way with the Inquisitor.

Dorian squeezed his eyes shut and tried to control his breathing but it was getting caught in his throat. If he hadn't slept in he might be with the Inquisitor right now. If he hadn't moaned so miserably yesterday maybe the Inquisitor wouldn't have decided to leave him behind. If he had just stayed with Cole at the smithy maybe the Inquisitor would already be back, maybe they all would have been sharing a lunch and preparing to go off and hunt demons.

“Undo his arms – be careful.”

They needn't have worried much. The magebane meant his mana was sickeningly low, leaving him feeling drained and sickly, and his head still felt thick and confused from the abuse. When his arms were released from behind the only thing Dorian managed was a muffled cry of pain as blood rushed back to them; he didn't get in more than a couple flails before he was dragged back onto the rock. With cruel efficiency rope was then looped around his wrists and pulled taunt so to be tied to the nearby trees. Soon Dorian's struggling was nothing more than a regrettable wiggle as his arms were spread wide, baring his chest to the sky.

And then, the hands holding him were gone.

Dorian lay with his back against the cold rock and his shoulders complaining at the strain, breathing heavy, trying to regain himself. He could still kick his legs but the people had moved to the side and appeared to be focusing on making a fire or some such thing, and the only one paying him any attention stood near his head so it was a useless effort. He tugged at his wrists but the ropes were tied tight and all it did was bite into his skin, and with the gag still in he couldn't get anything loud or articulate out. He tried cursing them out in Tevene just because it would make him feel better but it was entirely garbled.

His only hope right now was the Inquisitor finding him. Here, in the middle of nowhere. At some random, unimportant rock in one of hundreds of unimportant little groves of trees. Maybe if Cole had gotten to her...

Cole.

His stomach sank lower than it already had.

What had happened to Cole? He genuinely had no idea. He'd been alive when Dorian had gone down but was he still? He couldn't image Cole letting him be dragged away if he was still alive and capable of fighting – Maker, possibly even if he wasn't capable of fighting – but he definitely wasn't with any of the people here. Which meant he had either been incapacitated, knocked unconscious, or–

Or Dorian remembered in sickening detail the meat-cleaver pressed to Cole's pale neck, the blood running down his face.

Oh Maker please no. The boy was unsettling, intrusive, and didn't have enough sense to fill a thimble some days but he was sweet and earnest and so well-meaning, and the thought of anyone actually harming him, of harming him and it being _Dorian's fault_...

His focus was then returned very abruptly to his own situation by a sharp, grating _schlck_ _schlck_ that cut through the quietness of the snow covered forest.

A fire had indeed been started, and a little tripod stood over it, holding a pot of... something. Dorian couldn't say what with from this angle. But just next to it a man – the man that had been holding Cole, the one Cole had stabbed – was sitting on another protruding rock. He had a bandage tied crudely around his gut, spotted read, and was dragging his cleaver down a whetstone.

Dorian felt like he was going to be sick.

He tried to yell past his gag but the sounds were meaningless and no one was paying attention to him. Until the man with his whetstone glanced up and locked eyes with Dorian. They were cold and resolute.

“It was your people that killed us all,” he growled. “They came to our village, begging us to help them, as if they hadn't just spat on our help the moment they decided to burn the Cirlces. Apparently hot food an' beds an' learning isn't enough for some people, s'more than most get, but no, people insist on coddling the fucking demons. So here they come one day, begging like they're owed something. We tell 'em to fuck off, barely got enough supplies to last ourselves the winter, never mind useless mouths that're only gonna bring angry templars at their heels. So what do they do? Burn our fucking houses, our fields. My little Cece. She didn't do a fucking thing and you burned her like she was fucking field waste. Fucking demons, all of them. All of you. You're a blight on this world.” As steady as his hand was up and down the stone, his voice quavered.

The man took a steadying breath though and ran a thumb along his knife, seeming satisfied. The others stood around, watching – some looked as hard and resolute as he did, others seemed more nervous. They were just village people, just normal people, Dorian tried to remind himself. They weren't killers, they were probably scared, following the crowd. He grated his head back and forth against the rock, trying to free himself of the gag – if only he could make at least a couple of them understand that that person, that mage, _hadn't been him._ That he, a single man, could not represent the entirety of the Southern mages. That he was with the Inquisition and they were here to help. That the Inquisitor, blessed Harold of Andraste herself, was at this very moment out picking fucking herbs for them and was going to go risk her life yet again to close a Rift for their sake. But the knots of the gag were tight and all he did was scrape the skin off the back of his head as the man approached with his knife.

“You all need to be put down,” said the man. “But to kill is a sin in the eyes of our Maker. We aren't sinners like you. So we'll do what they should have been doing from the beginning and neuter your blight like you fucking deserve. Hold him steady now.”

Hands on him again as the man approached with the carver. Marker help him. With the rock at his back, all Dorian could see were animal sacrifices butchered and cooked on the holidays that lingered in reverence of the Old Gods – meaningless now, but still upheld. All he could see was fearful slaves forced to kneel at hard, cold alters for the sake of magic and power and arrogance. All he could see was his father, preparing the ritual Dorian would never give him a chance to complete. But the man didn't go for his throat; instead the hands all over him held his shoulders flat to the stone while others clamped around his already bound left arm, and the cleaver was brought so its cold, metal edge rested lightly against his wrist. A piece of cloth was tied just above it, too tight, blood cut off, fingers going numb.

_No, no, no._

The gag in his mouth did nothing to cover his screams. Nothing could. No pain compared to that, as the knife was drawn back and slammed down. Skin split, blood spurt hot and burning, bones crushed. Not enough, hand still intact, fingers twitching and writhing as if they could escape this, wrist destroyed but still there. The blade was drawn back again. Dorian wailed, drowning in himself, in his blood, in the pain, _he was dying_. Let him die, let him die, let him die, let him at least pass out, go back to that dark place, but he didn't, the pain grounded him instead of freeing him and the knife drew back again. He prayed, desperate. He didn't know if the words were right, suspected they weren't – thinking was hard and he had never paid over much attention to the Chant itself but it came to him now.

_Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls._  
From these emerald waters doth life begin anew.  
Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you.  
In my arms lies Eternity. 

This was eternity. It was never ending, would never end, _had_ to end, it hurt, _Maker_ , it hurt too much to continue something had to give, he was burning up.

When release came, it wasn't from the pain. Everything still hurt, burned, was dying, but suddenly a weight was gone, a weight that _belonged_ had broken away, disappeared, and his arm slipped free from the rope that had held it. Dorian jerked, tried to sit up, to pull his other hand free but it remained bound and hot blood was falling and his freed hand wasn't working ( _gone gone gone gone_ ) and it felt like there must be a hole in his head because every thought, every word, everything that wasn't the burning pain was dripping out of it. Nothing made sense. Hands, too many – _where had they come from?_ – demon hands grabbed him and pressed him back down as he screamed.

He screamed and he reached for the blood. It was there, hot, hot, so hot, burning, _calling to him_  – it was his only chance. Last resort of a weak mind – _he was weak_. Weak under hands and metal and rope and pain but the power that was there, prickling, _waiting_ for him, he couldn't touch it. The magebane still sat heavy in his mouth that hot blood did nothing but burn the skin it touched and whisper unfulfillable promises. He didn't know if he was grateful or not. It probably didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

He learned then what had been in the pot over the fire when his arm ( _only his arm, where was his hand, why why why it didn't make sense_ ) was pressed into boiling tar. He howled. He was feral, he wasn't human anymore, it was falling away, he couldn't possibly be feeling this and still be human.

Then his free arm was held down again by the hands and there was the bite of fabric into his other arm ( _no no no_ ) and the press of metal to his bound wrist

_Let the blade pass through the flesh,  
Let my blood touch the ground– _

 


End file.
